Weekly Updates Week Fourteen

Week Fourteen

12/12/11: This was our final week of doing A2 media, in which we completed our music video, did all four of our evaluation questions and made sure our blog was finished and we had completed all of the tasks.

'Little Lady' Final Draft

Apologies for the three minutes of blank air at the end of the video, there were problems in the editing stage but we hope you enjoy the final draft of our video. I would like to thank everybody who put in the time to help make our video what it is, we could not have done it without you all.

Evaluation Question Four: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question Four: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Media technologies were hugely important in all stages of creating our piece. Below are all the ways in which I used various technologies.

RESEARCH AND PLANNING

• Madonna.com – This helped me gain better insight into my star study of Madonna

• Google – Google helped me many times throughout the construction and research stage, it helped me find various websites which helped me with the research. 

• Google images – I needed to find a lot of images throughout the research and planning of the piece, thus Google Images was a big help.

• Wikipedia – Although not the most respected/trusted websites, it did help me in finding out information. However, I know not everything on Wikipedia is to be trusted and so I double checked the information was correct before using it.

• Youtube – Youtube was used for a variety of different reasons throughout the construction and research, sometimes for finding videos for the star analysis, or finding videos to analyse for Goodwin’s theory, or even for uploading our audience research. Youtube was used many times in the research and planning of the piece.

• IMDB – IMDB was very useful for finding out dates of births or birthplaces of particular artists, or even finding out their real names and awards they had been nominated for.

• Paint – When printscreening clips from Youtube, I needed to then crop the screengrab in Paint and turn it into an actual picture which would be uploadable to Blogger.

• Finalcut Pro – We used this in our construction and research when doing our audience research, we needed to edit all of the clips together and turn it into a video, with a soundtrack and so on.

• Kerrang Magazine – We had to analyse two magazine adverts, so I bought a ‘Kerrang’ magazine so that I could take two magazine adverts from it.

• Lyrics.com – I was constantly looking up lyrics throughout the duration of the construction and research, be it for our actual music video ‘Little Lady’ or for the video analysis’ where I included the lyrics to the music videos in the posts.

• Edsheeran.com – We had to get permission from the artist/the artist’s representative and so we went onto Ed Sheeran’s official website, found the email that we had to contact to find out, and emailed them straight away – they were back to us within mere minutes giving us permission to use his song.

• Gmail – We used Gmail to obviously email Ed Sheeran’s representative, but also to stay in contact with each other in a more formal way.

• Camera – This was used when filming the audience research.

• Blogger – The most obvious one of all, Blogger – every piece of work we do needs to be put on our own individual blogs in order to show that we are doing the tasks set.

• Phones – In order to stay in contact with each other and find out instantly where the other members of our group were, it was hugely important we had each other’s numbers so we could contact each other every time we needed to. 

• Drawings – I drew the storyboard for our music video on paper to give us all a better vision of the piece, but I also drew my first drafts of my digipak and magazine advert to give an idea of what I was hoping to do with my final pieces. 

• Digital Camera – We needed a digital camera to take the pictures for our animatic, which gave the audience an idea of the shots that would be used for our final music video.

• Starnow.co.uk – We used this website to look for possible actors who could star in our music video.

• TRIPOD – This was obviously very important when filming our audience research, we needed to have a steady shot or the research would have looked poor and unplanned.

• Mac – We obviously used the Mac computers to do most of our work, but mostly for the editing process of the audience research. 

CONSTRUCTION:

• CAMERA – We used the camera to film all the scenes of our music video.

• TRIPOD – Sometimes a tripod was not necessary, but generally we wanted to keep the camera steady which is near impossible if you do not have a tripod, thus why it was important.

• MAC – We used the Mac to log and capture all of our footage and then to edit it.
• FINALCUT PRO – This was the editing software we used to edit our music video together.
• YOUTUBE –  We used Youtube to upload our final music video so that people can see it easily as it is so accessible.
• ADOBE PHOTOSHOP – I used Photoshop in the construction of my Final digipak and magazine advert.

EVALUATION:

• Finalcut pro – We used Finalcut Pro to edit our audience feedback.
• Youtube – We used Youtube to upload our audience feedback to so that we could
• Paint – I used paint when taking screenshots from Youtube of our music video, I had to transfer the shots to paint in order to turn them into actual pictures.
• Powerpoint – To vary the presentation of my evaluation questions, I decided to do question one as a powerpoint presentation.
• Camera – We used a camera to film our audience feedback, we went around and asked people to watch our music video then asked them what they liked and what they did not like, and we filmed their answers.
• Tripod – We needed a tripod in order to keep the shots steady.
• Mac – The Mac was used various times in the evaluation, but mostly for logging and capturing our audience feedback and then editing it.
• Scribd – Scribd helped me upload my evaluation question one which I had done in the form of a powerpoint presentation.

Evaluation Question Three: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question Three: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Being the director of the music video, it was my task to be the visionary of the music video. If the audience did not like it, I would feel like I were at fault. All throughout the making of the music video, the audiences opinion was obviously extremely important. We conducted two pieces of audience research throughout the course, one before we started our music video and one after we had completed it.

The audience research we composed before filming our music video helped us gain a better insight into what exactly our target audience, the 16-25 year old category, wanted. This helped us when making our technical decisions for our music video.

The audience feedback was extremely helpful and after speaking about it as a group, we realised where we went wrong and how we could improve in the future. Some people said the music video was very long and drawn out, which we understood but we could do nothing about this as it was only as long as the song.

We got a lot of mixed feedback about the rapper insertions, some people said they liked a purely narrative based music video and felt the rapper dragged them out of the narrative, whilst others said that the performance element helped make the narrative more believable as a music video, and felt that without it the video would come across as more of a short film.

We received negative feedback about certain parts of the music video, for example some people said it seemed a bit repetitive at times towards the end where our main character is walking through a tunnel and it is intercutting between her being stalked and her walking through this tunnel. Some people said they got quite bored at this point, so we knew where we could improve upon it. Another criticism was of the effects, some people found the effects and transitions we used quite over the top, which we appreciated and did our best to cut down on.

We had a lot of positive feedback for our music video, majority of people felt that it looked like something they would see on a popular music channel. They found the performances believable, the varying locations and shot types were both interesting and helped them keep attention.

Our general reception was quite positive, people enjoyed the music video as a whole and we appreciated any criticisms they had, as it all comes in handy for future projects. All in all though, we had rather positive feedback and are happy with our final product, I feel like I fulfilled my task as director and, with a large amount of help from my group of course, created a realistic music video.

Below is the video of the audience feedback we received:

Evaluation Question Two: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Question Two: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Below are my two ancillary texts, my final digipak and magazine advert for my music video 'Little Lady' by Ed Sheeran featuring Mikill Pane. The song does not fit under just one genre, so is a hybrid of hip hop/grime/folk rock music. Ed Sheeran is quite an 'indie' artist, his songs featuring very few instruments and simple narrative storylines that anyone can relate to, and I wanted my digipak and magazine advert to reflect his simplicity, yet also have the same effectiveness.

My digipak is very simple, following a main colour pattern of black, browns and oranges. The bottom three panels show one photograph, of a bench with a guitar resting on it, split into three sections. I played with the colour of the photograph to give it a faded, brown/orange hue to it. The reason for the park bench photograph is fairly obvious, we decided to call our fictitious album 'Park Bench', as we wanted something very simple which also sounded like it could be the name of an Indie album. I felt the digipak would look more effective if I included some writing, e.g one panel includes the URL of the artists official website, and another panel mentions that this is the artist's debut album and how the music video we have produced has been nominated for a ficticious award, 'Hip Hop Video Of The Year', this is to intrigue possible buyers of the album and make them want to buy it. The font is brown and goes well with the background colour I have made the photo, it is effective in its simplicity. 

The tracklist featured on the digipak is very simple, with a black background and clear, orange coloured font outlining the tracks featuring on the album. I decided to include orange paw prints around the tracklist as Ed Sheeran's guitar is well known for having an orange pawprint on it, here I am giving homage to the artist. The CD panel is very plain, I wanted it to be plain so as not to take away from the other features of the digipak. The last panel is a photo of the girl who features in our music video for 'Little Lady', the photo is black and white - as is the music video - but this stands out from the rest of the digipak which is in colour. 

My magazine advert also features a photo of a bench which has been stylistically edited and colour corrected to look faded with a brown hue. The font stands out drastically in contrast to the background but the colours still mesh well, the album name is largest and in a black font, with the artist's name in orange and overlapping it, but not enough so as to obscure the clarity of the text. The advert mentions our main product which features on the CD, aswell as the fact that is has been nominated for best hip hop video of the year, all of these things are items which would feature in a real magazine advert, and would intrigue the audience into buying the album. I have also included some black paw prints, which as I said before have come to be known as a trademark of Ed Sheeran. I've included a rating of the album from a magazine called 'Billboard' who jokingly give the album '4 paw prints' instead of stars, again with the idea of Ed Sheeran's trademark paw print becoming a recognizable characteristic in which people can familiarise themselves with. 

Overall, I feel that my ancillary tasks are quite effective in combination with my main product, as they are both quite serious and adult in look/tone. They both feature an element of the music video I have produced, the digipak has a photo of the girl who features in the video and the magazine advert mentions the video and both pieces write about the fact that it has been nominated for an award. This shows I am not forgetting about my piece as a whole, which was not to create and sell an album, it was to create a successful music video. I feel that people would see the mature style of both pieces and realise it is not just any generic album, and they would see the praise that the music video is getting, and thus be more inclined to buy it than most albums.

Evaluation Question One: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Elizabeth Rayner Media Power Point (1)

Weekly Updates Week Thirteen

Week Thirteen

5/12/11: We had a first draft of our music video complete for this week, but we had not added in the performance element yet which included the rapper miming to the song, but would do that throughout the week, and have our final draft complete for the deadline, the 16^th of December. I also made my final 'magazine advert' and 'digipak' for our music video 'Little Lady'.

Final Digipak

DIGIPAK RIGHT SIDE UP

DIGIPAK UPSIDE DOWN

Final Magazine Advert

'Little Lady' Music Video First Draft

Weekly Updates Week Twelve

Week Twelve

28/11/11: This week, we knew we were running out of time and so we had to rush to get the footage of the rapper filmed, whilst also continuing to edit and get a first draft of our music video.

Weekly Updates Week Eleven

Week Eleven

21/11/11: Throughout this week, we were editing our music video yet again, but we decided that it was lacking an element that realistic music videos have: a performance. We decided that, to make our music video more believable, we would film footage of a rapper miming to the song then add it in to the final piece.

Weekly Updates Week Ten

Week Ten

14/11/11: We continued editing throughout this week.

Weekly Updates Week Nine

Week Nine

7/11/11: We refilmed the footage that we had to and started properly editing this week.

Weekly Updates Week Eight

Week Eight

31/10/11: This week we came back to college from half term and spent the week logging and capturing our footage onto the Mac computers and going through the footage, deciding what clips to use, and what clips were unusable or had to be filmed again – unfortunately some of our footage did not look realistic, or the lighting was too dark so we knew we had to refilm.

Weekly Updates Week Seven

Week Seven

24/10/11: This was our half term week in which we did the bulk of our filming, mostly at a house, by a large block of flats and in a park.

Weekly Updates Week Six

Week Six

17/10/11: This was our last week of the planning and research tasks, as we knew we would be filming the following week, which was our half term week. This week, we did our call sheets so that we knew the numbers of all our crew members and how to contact them if we needed to, as well as the risk assessment – this was very important, as we did not want anyone to be harmed during the filming of our music video. We even created a record company logo for our music video to make ourselves seem more legitimate – the name was ‘ENN’, which stands for ‘Elizabeth’ (myself) and my two group members ‘Natacha’ and ‘Nafisat’. We had the idea of hiring professional freelance actors to star in our movie so that it seemed more realistic, so we hired a casting call on website ‘http://www.starnow.co.uk/’. We got a lot of replies from interested actors and actresses, but in the end we decided against this as we wanted people who we knew we could rely on – ourselves. Thus, our editor Natacha ended up being the main actress in the music video.

Casting Call

We want our video to be of the best quality, and so we decided to put up an advert on the casting site 'Star Now', to hopefully get some semi-experienced actors willing to act in our music video:

Our Production/Record Company Logo

Any record company has a logo, which audiences can easily identify them with. To make our video more professional we decided to make a production logo for ourselves:

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment

Call Sheets

Shot List

	-Establishing shot of block of flats -Worm eye view of her feet walking toward the flat (cannot see flat just yet)
Listen, little lady, This is just the worst way to spend your birthday,	-Close up of flat numbers and her pressing her key on the thing to open it -medium close up Shot of her grabbing the door and opening it
It's thirty degrees, Thursday. You work late, you is with a perv making dirty fake love in his Mercedes.	-close up of Her pressing the lift button - close up of the bag she’s holding with the cup cake. - low angle shot (on floor) of her walking in to the lift - close up shot of the lift doors closing in front of her
Lady, the word rape sums up events that take place every night. You wanna get up but you know your legs will ache if you try.	-medium long shot of her walking to the door -close up shot of her putting her keys in the hole
And you remember that your punter went crazy last night, You drag yourself to the mirror to check your face, then you cry. Forget the visit to the clinic you were booked in for, You'll make a trip to the Whittington where they'll look at your jaw.	-medium close upshot of her putting the plastic bag down on the table and walking away -eye level medium shot of her looking in to the mirror at her battered up face, -(same shot) touching face trying to cover face with make up (starts to cry if can) Gives up and walks away
They'll be inquisitive and ask about your business for sure, They'll know you're fibbing if you tell them you got hit by a door.	-medium close up of her taking cup cake out of bag -medium close up of the cup cake, her putting candle on it and lighting it.
But young woman the pimp sees you as nothin' but a dumb hooker, Medical attention could be fatal	-wide shot of her sitting with the cup cake in front of her -close up of her blowing out lonely candle.
'Cause the cunt wouldn't ever let a doctor near someone that's getting dough for him, 'Cause next you got poxy authorities sticking their noses in.	-*(close up shot of candle smoke) -close up shot of tear falling out of eye
Chorus She's just under the upper-hand. And goes mad for a couple grammes. And she don't wanna go outside, tonight. 'Cause in the pipe she'll fly to the motherland and, Sell love to another man. It's too cold outside, for angels to fly. For angels to fly.	-close up of the door -close up of her face -close up of the door -shot of bird in sky. -shots of buildings. -Shot of the hospital and her walking towards it.
Little lady, Your mind you've made up, Your injuries you can't hide with make-up.	-establishing shot of hospital inside - medium shot of her face and shoulders (taking deep breath) - close up of her foot walking in - long shot of her walking
You need some medical advice, you make up, A little lie to say just in case the Doc opens his eyes and don't decide to play dumb. With any luck you'll see the same dude that stitched your top lip, Last year when your pimp just lost it. He wouldn't recognize you if you stared him in the face anyway 'Cause all the Herroin is making you age, But you're a heroin for taking the strain of being a prostitute and punching back the funds you have left, go where you from using money gram.	*fade* - long shot in front of her as she walks along a road with cars sticking her hand out - medium long shot from behind her of a car pulling up and rolling window down her bending over and talking into window -over the shoulder shot of her taking to him -close up of her (from inside the car) of her face - medium shot (from behind) of her walking into the car - long shot of the car driving off with her inside -wide shot of car driving past fast…
Mother had to get you out of the motherland, to study, That was all she struggled to have a single daughter with the upper hand. Little does she know, you're never coming back She put you in her brother's hands only for him to formulate another plan He's the fucking cause of your appalling state this summer Fancy that? You came to London to get pimped by your Uncle, Damn.	-medium long shot of the car pulling up  - medium close up shot from males window him leaning across her and opening door telling her to get out her being hesitant demanding money, him pushing her -medium shot of her on the floor -medium close up shot from males window of him getting money and throwing it at her -medium long shot of her on floor with money on her car drives away and she’s left chasing money in the wind -medium wide shot of her sitting in the corridor with other sick people around her yet she feels alone.
Chorus She's just under the upper-hand. And goes mad for a couple grammes. And she don't wanna go outside, tonight. 'Cause in the pipe she'll fly to the motherland and, Sell love to another man. It's too cold outside for angels to fly, Now an angel will die, covered in white With closed eyes, and hoping for a better life This time I'll fade out tonight, Straight down the line.	(day time in park) *Fade* - wide shot she walks through a park aimlessly -worms eye shot of tops of trees - eye level medium shot people looking at her in disappointment - close up of her face - (eye line match) shot of a man looking suspicious - close up shot of her face, puts face down, “trying” to be discrete. - medium close up of her battered up shoes walking past - medium close up of his feet walking towards hers -close up of hands exchanging goods. -close up of her hand showing bad of coke -close up of his hand showing money. -medium wide shot of her in front of table lining up coke and going in to snort it.
Little lady, You're trembling with fear, Your skinny frame kinda resembles a deer, You're sitting facing a detective, oh dear The meddling nurse couldn't just leave it, She's only gone and made it much worse calling police in, She'll never know the gravity of the damage she's caused Your causing scandal going mad in the ward now, The copper's trying to calm you, Telling you he won't let no one harm you The same question he keeps trying to ask you, Who you working for? He's talking to you like your worth more than a dirty whore You're having a conversation you could be murdered for You're learning more about exactly why you need to help bring him or her to court	-medium shot of a detective calling her from a door -close up shot of her face looking up -medium shot of her walking towards the door -medium shot of her walking to the door and door shuts behind her -(inside the room) -medium shot two chairs in front of one another her sitting on one -medium establishing shot of detective walking over to her and stands over her (looking intimidating) - worm eye view her looking up at him -birds eye view of him touching her shoulder - medium shot of her moving back confused -shot reverse shot he sits down to speak to her eye to eye level -360 degree shot of them sitting down talking her not saying much, he hands her his card she puts it in her bag and leaves the room.
He's kicking knowledge you ain't ever heard before Just before he leaves he reassures you that he knows that it's hard He underlines a mobile number you can phone on his card Begs you to use it he's useless if you're gonna be stupid 'Cause an answer hasn't come from your bruised lips You're on your own, You've gotta go and give your pimp what you owe, You reach your door and then it dawns that you've been followed home Before you turn around you feel a cold blade on your throat And then a voice says 'where you been bitch I wanna know.' No prizes for guessing who it is resistance would be foolishness, You open the front door, he boots you in Here's something new in him, he's silent now That fills you with terror Get your alibi straight you could be killed for an error He towers over you, the six inch knife catches the sunlight At this point, your life flashes before your eyes Your handbags dropped and all the contents are all over the floor Despite the mess there's only one thing that caught his eye.	- medium long shot, in front, walking down the road - close up of her face looking scared - medium long shot from behind her (as if someone is following her) - close up of over the shoulder shot of her looking behind her -tracking shot from behind her walking towards her flat building - medium shot of a random man walking past her -establishing shot of flat -close up of her face looking relieved -medium shot from behind her she runs slightly to get to the door - close up shot of knife on her throat -medium shot of him standing there - medium shot from behind her of him grabbing her and taking her in - medium shot of him kicking her in to her flat -medium from above (birds eye view) she’s on the floor - medium close up shot of everything in bag on floor -close up of card from police and him picking it up -medium shot of him looking at card and looking at her on floor -medium shot from behind him as he goes in to kill while closing door with foot behind him.
And in the moment of rage he brutally murders his niece and dumps her body in the boot of his Mercs in the street.	-medium wide shot of him closing the boot of his car -long shot of him driving off *fade or something*
Chorus Little lady left this earth in the worst way, all because she got a card on her 13th birthday... And we're all under the upper- hand. And go mad for a couple grammes. And we don't wanna go outside, tonight 'Cause in the pipe she'll fly to the motherland And sell love to another man, It's too cold outside for angels to fly For angels to fly, Fly, Fly For angels to fly, to fly, to fly. Angels to die.	-long shot of him driving away from deserted location (lake side) -medium shot, on the side of the lake, of the lake pan out - long shot, looking up, shot of birds in the sky - medium close up, from above, shot of 13th birthday card in her flat floor (in colour) pan in to it, to the words inside saying from your loving uncle.